Contents

The plot is based on the book with fewer bloody details. A regiment of Union soldiers head South to engage Confederate forces. Joining them is Henry Fleming (Audie Murphy), a green private sent into battle for the first time. He is unprepared for the fight, but by the time battle breaks out, he finds his endurance and courage tested.[3]

Director John Huston used unusual compositions and camera angles drawn from film noir to create an alienating battlefield environment. Huston had high hopes for the movie, believing it could have been "his best". He became frustrated when the studio cut the film's length to 70 minutes and added narration following supposedly poor audience test screenings.[3]

Much of the history of the making of this film, considered by some a mutilated masterpiece, is found in Lillian Ross' critically acclaimed book Picture. Of the stars who appear in the film, three served in World War II: Bill Mauldin the editorial cartoonist who created "Up Front", Audie Murphy served with the U.S. Army in Europe and narrator James Whitmore served with the U.S. Marine Corps.[3]

The film is available on DVD.

John Huston had high hopes for this movie, even considered the original two-hour cut of the film as the best he had ever made as a director. After a power struggle at the top of MGM management, the film was cut from a two-hour epic to the 69-minute version released to theaters, in response to its alleged universally disastrous previews. It was never released as an "A" feature but was shown as a second-feature "B" picture. Both Huston and star Audie Murphy tried unsuccessfully to purchase the film so that it could be re-edited to its original length. Huston did not waste any time fighting over it, as he was focused on the pre-production of his next picture, The African Queen. The studio claimed that the cut footage was destroyed, probably in the 1965 MGM vault fire. Huston was later asked by MGM in 1975 if he had an original cut, as the studio wanted to release. He had actually struck a 16mm print, but, by that time, it had been lost.

According to MGM records, the film earned $789,000 in the US and Canada and $291,000 in other countries, resulting in a loss of $1,018,000. This made it one of the studio's least successful films of the year although it did not lose as much money as Calling Bulldog Drummond, Mr Imperium or Inside Straight.[1]

1.
John Huston
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John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. During his 46-year career, Huston received 15 Oscar nominations, won twice, Huston was known to direct with the vision of an artist, having studied and worked as a fine art painter in Paris in his early years. He continued to explore the aspects of his films throughout his career, sketching each scene on paper beforehand. Most of Hustons films were adaptations of important novels, often depicting a heroic quest, as in Moby Dick, or The Red Badge of Courage. In many films, different groups of people, while struggling toward a goal, would become doomed, forming destructive alliances, giving the films a dramatic. Many of his films involved themes such as religion, meaning, truth, freedom, psychology, colonialism, Huston has been referred to as a titan, a rebel, and a renaissance man in the Hollywood film industry. Author Ian Freer describes him as cinemas Ernest Hemingway—a filmmaker who was never afraid to tackle tough issues head on, John Huston was born on August 5,1906, in Nevada, Missouri. He was the child of Rhea and Canadian-born Walter Huston. His father was an actor, initially in vaudeville, and later in films and his mother initially worked as a sports editor for various publications but gave it up after Huston was born. Similarly, his father gave up his acting career for steady employment as a civil engineer. He would later become successful on both Broadway and then in motion pictures. He had Scottish, Scots-Irish, English and Welsh ancestry, Hustons parents divorced in 1913, when he was 6, and as a result much of his childhood was spent living in boarding schools. During summer vacations, he traveled with each of his parents separately — with his father on vaudeville tours, the young Huston benefited greatly from seeing his father act on stage, as he was later drawn to the world of acting. Some critics, such as Lawrence Grobel, surmise that his relationship with his mother may have been the cause of his five marriages, and why few of his relationships lasted. Grobel wrote, When I interviewed some of the women who had loved him, according to actress Olivia de Havilland, she was the central character. I always felt that John was ridden by witches and he seemed pursued by something destructive. If it wasnt his mother, it was his idea of his mother, as a child he was often ill and was treated for an enlarged heart and kidney ailments. He recovered after an extended stay in Arizona, and moved with his mother to Los Angeles

2.
Stephen Crane
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Stephen Crane was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism. He is recognized by critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation. The ninth surviving child of Protestant Methodist parents, Crane began writing at the age of four and had published articles by the age of 16. Having little interest in university studies, he left college in 1891 to work as a reporter and writer, Cranes first novel was the 1893 Bowery tale Maggie, A Girl of the Streets, generally considered by critics to be the first work of American literary Naturalism. He won international acclaim in 1895 for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, in 1896, Crane endured a highly publicized scandal after appearing as a witness in the trial of a suspected prostitute, an acquaintance named Dora Clark. Late that year he accepted an offer to travel to Cuba as a war correspondent, as he waited in Jacksonville, Florida, for passage, he met Cora Taylor, with whom he began a lasting relationship. En route to Cuba, Cranes vessel the SS Commodore, sank off the coast of Florida, leaving him, Crane described the ordeal in The Open Boat. During the final years of his life, he covered conflicts in Greece and he was befriended by writers such as Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells. Plagued by financial difficulties and ill health, Crane died of tuberculosis in a Black Forest sanatorium in Germany at the age of 28, at the time of his death, Crane was considered an important figure in American literature. After he was forgotten for two decades, critics revived interest in his life and work. Cranes writing is characterized by intensity, distinctive dialects. Common themes involve fear, spiritual crises and social isolation and his writing made a deep impression on 20th-century writers, most prominent among them Ernest Hemingway, and is thought to have inspired the Modernists and the Imagists. He was the fourteenth and last child born to the couple, at 45, Helen Crane had suffered the early deaths of her previous four children, each of whom died within one year of birth. Nicknamed Stevie by the family, he joined eight surviving brothers and sisters—Mary Helen, George Peck, Jonathan Townley, William Howe, Agnes Elizabeth, Edmund Byran, Wilbur Fiske, and Luther. The Cranes were descended from Jaspar Crane, a founder of New Haven Colony, Crane later wrote that his father, Dr. Crane, was a great, fine, simple mind, who had written numerous tracts on theology. The young Stephen was raised primarily by his sister Agnes, who was 15 years his senior, the family moved to Port Jervis, New York, in 1876, where Dr. Crane became the pastor of Drew Methodist Church, a position that he retained until his death. As a child, Stephen was often sickly and afflicted by constant colds, when the boy was almost two, his father wrote in his diary that his youngest son became so sick that we are anxious about him

3.
Audie Murphy
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Murphy was born into a large sharecropper family in Hunt County, Texas. His father abandoned them, and his mother died when he was a teenager, Murphy left school in fifth grade to pick cotton and find other work to help support his family, his skill with a hunting rifle was a necessity for putting food on the table. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Murphys older sister helped him to falsify documentation about his birthdate to meet the requirement for enlisting in the military. Turned down by the Navy and the Marine Corps, he enlisted in the Army and he first saw action in the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Battle of Anzio, and in 1944 participated in the liberation of Rome and invasion of southern France. Murphy fought at Montélimar, and led his men on an assault at the LOmet quarry near Cleurie in northeastern France in October. After the war, Murphy enjoyed a 21-year acting career and he played himself in the 1955 autobiographical film To Hell and Back, based on his 1949 memoirs of the same name, but most of his roles were in westerns. He made guest appearances on celebrity television shows and starred in the series Whispering Smith, Murphy was a fairly accomplished songwriter, and bred quarter horses in California and Arizona, becoming a regular participant in horse racing. Suffering from what would today be termed posttraumatic stress disorder, he slept with a handgun under his pillow. In his last few years, he was plagued by money problems, Murphy died in a plane crash in Virginia in 1971 shortly before his 46th birthday, and was interred with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Murphy was born the seventh of twelve children to Emmett Berry Murphy and his wife Josie Bell Killian in Kingston, the Murphys were sharecroppers of Irish descent. As a child, Murphy was a loner with mood swings and he grew up in Texas, around Farmersville, Greenville, and Celeste, where he attended elementary school. His father drifted in and out of the life and eventually deserted them. Murphy dropped out of school in grade and got a job picking cotton for a dollar a day to help support his family, he also became skilled with a rifle. After his mother died of endocarditis and pneumonia in 1941, he worked at a repair shop and at a combination general store, garage. Hunt County authorities placed his three youngest siblings in Boles Childrens Home, a Christian orphanage in Quinlan, after the war, he bought a house in Farmersville for his oldest sister Corinne and her husband Poland Burns. His other siblings briefly shared the home, the loss of his mother stayed with Murphy throughout his life. He later stated, She died when I was sixteen and she had the most beautiful hair Ive ever seen. It reached almost to the floor and she rarely talked, and always seemed to be searching for something

4.
Bill Mauldin
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William Henry Bill Mauldin was an American editorial cartoonist who won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work. His cartoons were popular with soldiers throughout Europe, and with civilians in the United States as well, Mauldin was born in Mountain Park, New Mexico into a family with a tradition of military service. His father served as an artilleryman in World War I, after growing up there and in Phoenix, Arizona, Mauldin took courses at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts under the tutoring of Ruth VanSickle Ford. While in Chicago, Mauldin met Will Lang Jr. and became fast friends with him, Lang Jr. later became a journalist and a bureau head for Life magazine. Mauldin entered the US Army in 1940 via the Arizona National Guard, while in the 45th Infantry Division, Mauldin volunteered to work for the units newspaper, drawing cartoons about regular soldiers or dogfaces. Eventually he created two cartoon infantrymen, Willie and Joe, who represented the average American GI. During July 1943, Mauldins cartoon work continued when, as a sergeant of the 45th Divisions press corps, he landed with the division in the invasion of Sicily and later in the Italian campaign. Mauldin began working for Stars and Stripes, the American soldiers newspaper, as well as the 45th Division News, until he was transferred to the Stars. By March 1944, he was given his own jeep, in which he roamed the front and he published six cartoons a week. His cartoons were viewed by soldiers throughout Europe during World War II, the War Office supported their syndication, not only because they helped publicize the ground forces but also to show the grim side of war, which helped show that victory would not be easy. While in Europe, Mauldin befriended a fellow soldier-cartoonist, Gregor Duncan, Mauldin was not without his detractors. His images—which often parodied the Armys spit-shine and obedience-to-orders-without-question policy—offended some officers, general Dwight Eisenhower, Pattons superior, told Patton to leave Mauldin alone, he felt the cartoons gave the soldiers an outlet for their frustrations. Stars and Stripes is the paper, he told him. In a 1989 interview, Mauldin said, I always admired Patton, oh, sure, the stupid bastard was crazy. He thought he was living in the Dark Ages, I didnt like that attitude, but I certainly respected his theories and the techniques he used to get his men out of their foxholes. Mauldins cartoons made him a hero to the common soldier, gIs often credited him with helping them to get through the rigors of the war. His credibility with the common soldier increased in September 1943, when he was wounded in the shoulder by a German mortar while visiting a machine gun crew near Monte Cassino, by the end of the war he received the Armys Legion of Merit for his cartoons. Mauldin wanted Willie and Joe to be killed on the last day of combat, the first civilian compilation of his work, Up Front, a collection of his cartoons interwoven with his observations of war, topped the best-seller list in 1945

5.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of feature films and television programs. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California and it is one of the worlds oldest film studios. In 1971, it was announced that MGM would merge with 20th Century Fox, over the next thirty-nine years, the studio was bought and sold at various points in its history until, on November 3,2010, MGM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. MGM Resorts International, a Las Vegas-based hotel and casino company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MGM, is not currently affiliated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1966, MGM was sold to Canadian investor Edgar Bronfman Sr. whose son Edgar Jr. would later buy Universal Studios, the studio continued to produce five to six films a year that were released through other studios, mostly United Artists. Kerkorian did, however, commit to increased production and a film library when he bought United Artists in 1981. MGM ramped up production, as well as keeping production going at UA. It also incurred significant amounts of debt to increase production, the studio took on additional debt as a series of owners took charge in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1986, Ted Turner bought MGM, but a few later, sold the company back to Kerkorian to recoup massive debt. The series of deals left MGM even more heavily in debt, MGM was bought by Pathé Communications in 1990, but Parretti lost control of Pathé and defaulted on the loans used to purchase the studio. The French banking conglomerate Crédit Lyonnais, the major creditor. Even more deeply in debt, MGM was purchased by a joint venture between Kerkorian, producer Frank Mancuso, and Australias Seven Network in 1996, the debt load from these and subsequent business deals negatively affected MGMs ability to survive as an independent motion picture studio. In 1924, movie theater magnate Marcus Loew had a problem and he had bought Metro Pictures Corporation in 1919 for a steady supply of films for his large Loews Theatres chain. With Loews lackluster assortment of Metro films, Loew purchased Goldwyn Pictures in 1924 to improve the quality, however, these purchases created a need for someone to oversee his new Hollywood operations, since longtime assistant Nicholas Schenck was needed in New York headquarters to oversee the 150 theaters. Mayer, Loew addressed the situation by buying Louis B. Mayer Pictures on April 17,1924, Mayer became head of the renamed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with Irving Thalberg as head of production. MGM produced more than 100 feature films in its first two years, in 1925, MGM released the extravagant and successful Ben-Hur, taking a $4.7 million profit that year, its first full year. Marcus Loew died in 1927, and control of Loews passed to Nicholas Schenck, in 1929, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation bought the Loew familys holdings with Schencks assent. Mayer and Thalberg disagreed with the decision, Mayer was active in the California Republican Party and used his political connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay final approval of the deal on antitrust grounds

6.
War film
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War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war films often end with them, themes explored include combat, survival and escape, sacrifice, the futility and inhumanity of battle, the effects of war on society, and the moral and human issues raised by war. War films are categorized by their milieu, such as the Korean War. The stories told may be fiction, historical drama, or biographical, critics have noted similarities between the Western and the war film. Subgenres, not necessarily distinct, include anti-war, comedy, animated, propaganda, the war film genre is not necessarily tightly defined, the American Film Institute, for example, speaks of films to grapple with the Great War without attempting to classify these. However, some directors and critics have offered at least tentative definitions, the director Sam Fuller defined the genre by saying that a war film’s objective, no matter how personal or emotional, is to make a viewer feel war. However, Neale notes, films set in the American Civil War or the American Indian Wars of the 19th century were called war films in the time before the First World War, the film scholar Kathryn Kane points out some similarities between the war film genre and the Western. Both genres use opposing concepts like war and peace, civilization, james Clarke notes the similarity between a Western like Sam Peckinpahs The Wild Bunch and war-movie escapades like The Dirty Dozen. They take place in the combat zones of World War II, against the established enemies, on the ground. They contain many repeated events, such as mail call, all presented visually with appropriate uniforms, equipment and she argues that the combat film is not a subgenre but the only genuine kind of war film. This in turn pushes combat scenes to the ends of war films. Not all critics agree, either, that war films must be about 20th century wars, the costliest war in U. S. history in terms of American life, this war has been the subject of, or the backdrop to, numerous films, documentaries and mini-series. One of the earliest films using the Civil War as its subject was D. W. Griffiths 1910 silent picture, The Fugitive. Some films such as Gettysburg focused on a battle during the war, or even on a single incident, like the French short film. Others like the 1993 miniseries North and South spanned the entire breadth of the war, some films deal with the human aspects of the war, such as The Red Badge of Courage, or Shenandoah, on the tragedy that the war inflicted on the civilian population. Ken Burnss The Civil War is the most watched documentary in the history of PBS, the first war films come from the Spanish–American War of 1898. Short actualities – documentary film-clips – included Burial of the Maine Victims, Blanket-Tossing of a New Recruit and these non-combat films were accompanied by reenactments of fighting, such as of Theodore Roosevelts Rough Riders in action against the Spanish, staged in the United States

7.
American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864

8.
Film noir
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Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly such that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywoods classical film noir period is regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression. Cinema historians and critics defined the category retrospectively, before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic films noir were referred to as melodramas. Whether film noir qualifies as a genre is a matter of ongoing debate among scholars. Although film noir was originally associated with American productions, films now so described have been made around the world, many pictures released from the 1960s onward share attributes with film noir of the classical period, and often treat its conventions self-referentially. Some refer to such works as neo-noir. The clichés of film noir have inspired parody since the mid-1940s, the questions of what defines film noir, and what sort of category it is, provoke continuing debate. They emphasize that not every film noir embodies all five attributes in equal measure—one might be more dreamlike, another, while many critics refer to film noir as a genre itself, others argue that it can be no such thing. Because of the diversity of noir, certain scholars in the field, such as film historian Thomas Schatz, treat it as not a genre but a style. Other critics treat film noir as a mood, characterize it as a series, there is no consensus on the matter. By 1931, Curtiz had already been in Hollywood for half a decade, the Universal horror that comes closest to noir, in story and sensibility is The Invisible Man, directed by Englishman James Whale and photographed by American Arthur Edeson. Edeson later photographed The Maltese Falcon, widely regarded as the first major film noir of the classic era, josef von Sternberg was directing in Hollywood at the same time. Films of his such as Shanghai Express and The Devil Is a Woman, with their hothouse eroticism and baroque visual style, the commercial and critical success of Sternbergs silent Underworld was largely responsible for spurring a trend of Hollywood gangster films. Successful films in that such as Little Caesar, The Public Enemy. An important, possibly influential, cinematic antecedent to classic noir was 1930s French poetic realism, with its romantic, fatalistic attitude, the movements sensibility is mirrored in the Warner Bros. drama I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, a forerunner of noir. Among films not considered films noir, perhaps none had an effect on the development of the genre than Citizen Kane

9.
United States Army
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The United States Armed Forces are the federal armed forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, from the time of its inception, the military played a decisive role in the history of the United States. A sense of unity and identity was forged as a result of victory in the First Barbary War. Even so, the Founders were suspicious of a permanent military force and it played an important role in the American Civil War, where leading generals on both sides were picked from members of the United States military. Not until the outbreak of World War II did a standing army become officially established. The National Security Act of 1947, adopted following World War II and during the Cold Wars onset, the U. S. military is one of the largest militaries in terms of number of personnel. It draws its personnel from a pool of paid volunteers. As of 2016, the United States spends about $580.3 billion annually to fund its military forces, put together, the United States constitutes roughly 40 percent of the worlds military expenditures. For the period 2010–14, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that the United States was the worlds largest exporter of major arms, the United States was also the worlds eighth largest importer of major weapons for the same period. The history of the U. S. military dates to 1775 and these forces demobilized in 1784 after the Treaty of Paris ended the War for Independence. All three services trace their origins to the founding of the Continental Army, the Continental Navy, the United States President is the U. S. militarys commander-in-chief. Rising tensions at various times with Britain and France and the ensuing Quasi-War and War of 1812 quickened the development of the U. S. Navy, the reserve branches formed a military strategic reserve during the Cold War, to be called into service in case of war. Time magazines Mark Thompson has suggested that with the War on Terror, Command over the armed forces is established in the United States Constitution. The sole power of command is vested in the President by Article II as Commander-in-Chief, the Constitution also allows for the creation of executive Departments headed principal officers whose opinion the President can require. This allowance in the Constitution formed the basis for creation of the Department of Defense in 1947 by the National Security Act, the Defense Department is headed by the Secretary of Defense, who is a civilian and member of the Cabinet. The Defense Secretary is second in the chain of command, just below the President. Together, the President and the Secretary of Defense comprise the National Command Authority, to coordinate military strategy with political affairs, the President has a National Security Council headed by the National Security Advisor. The collective body has only power to the President

10.
United States Marine Corps
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The U. S. Marine Corps is one of the four armed service branches in the U. S. Department of Defense and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military officer in the U. S. Armed Forces, is a Marine Corps general, the Marine Corps has been a component of the U. S. Department of the Navy since 30 June 1834, working closely with naval forces for training, transportation, and logistics. The USMC operates posts on land and aboard sea-going amphibious warfare ships around the world, two battalions of Continental Marines were formed on 10 November 1775 in Philadelphia as a service branch of infantry troops capable of fighting for independence both at sea and on shore. The role of the Corps has since grown and evolved, expanding to aerial warfare and earning popular titles such as, Americas third air force, and, second land army. By the mid-20th century, the U. S. Marine Corps had become a major theorist of and its ability to rapidly respond on short notice to expeditionary crises gives it a strong role in the implementation and execution of American foreign policy. As of 2016, the USMC has around 182,000 active duty members and it is the smallest of the U. S. The USMC serves as an expeditionary force-in-readiness and this last clause, while seemingly redundant given the Presidents position as Commander-in-chief, is a codification of the expeditionary responsibilities of the Marine Corps. It derives from similar language in the Congressional acts For the Better Organization of the Marine Corps of 1834, in 1951, the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee called the clause one of the most important statutory – and traditional – functions of the Marine Corps. In addition to its duties, the Marine Corps conducts Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure operations, as well as missions in direct support of the White House. The Marine Band, dubbed the Presidents Own by Thomas Jefferson, Marines from Ceremonial Companies A & B, quartered in Marine Barracks, Washington, D. C. The Executive Flight Detachment also provides transport to Cabinet members. The relationship between the Department of State and the U. S. Marine Corps is nearly as old as the corps itself, for over 200 years, Marines have served at the request of various Secretaries of State. After World War II, an alert, disciplined force was needed to protect American embassies, consulates, in 1947, a proposal was made that the Department of War furnish Marine Corps personnel for Foreign Service guard duty under the provisions of the Foreign Service Act of 1946. A formal Memorandum of Agreement was signed between the Department of State and the Secretary of the Navy on December 15,1948, during the first year of the MSG program,36 detachments were deployed worldwide. Continental Marines manned raiding parties, both at sea and ashore, the Advanced Base Doctrine of the early 20th century codified their combat duties ashore, outlining the use of Marines in the seizure of bases and other duties on land to support naval campaigns. Throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, Marine detachments served aboard Navy cruisers, battleships, Marine detachments served in their traditional duties as a ships landing force, manning the ships weapons and providing shipboard security. Marines would develop tactics and techniques of amphibious assault on defended coastlines in time for use in World War II, during World War II, Marines continued to serve on capital ships

11.
The Red Badge of Courage
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The Red Badge of Courage is a war novel by American author Stephen Crane. Taking place during the American Civil War, the story is about a private of the Union Army, Henry Fleming. Overcome with shame, he longs for a wound, a red badge of courage, when his regiment once again faces the enemy, Henry acts as standard-bearer. Although Crane was born after the war, and had not at the time experienced battle first-hand and he began writing what would become his second novel in 1894, using various contemporary and written accounts as inspiration. Initially shortened and serialized in newspapers in December 1895, the novel was published in full in October 1895, a longer version of the work, based on Cranes original manuscript, was published in 1983. The novel is known for its style, which includes realistic battle sequences as well as the repeated use of color imagery. Separating itself from a traditional war narrative, Cranes story reflects the experience of its protagonist rather than the external world around him. Also notable for its use of what Crane called a psychological portrayal of fear, several of the themes that the story explores are maturation, heroism, cowardice, and the indifference of nature. The Red Badge of Courage garnered widespread acclaim, what H. G. Wells called an orgy of praise, shortly after its publication, the novel and its author did have their initial detractors, however, including author and veteran Ambrose Bierce. Adapted several times for the screen, the became a bestseller. It has never been out of print and is now thought to be Cranes most important work, Stephen Crane published his first novel, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets, in March 1893 at the age of 22. Maggie was not a success, either financially or critically, most critics thought the unsentimental Bowery tale crude or vulgar, and Crane chose to publish the work privately after it was repeatedly rejected for publication. Crane found inspiration for his novel while spending hours lounging in a friends studio in the early summer of 1893. There, he became fascinated with issues of Century Magazine that were devoted to famous battles. Frustrated with the written stories, Crane stated, I wonder that some of those fellows dont tell how they felt in those scraps. They spout enough of what they did, but theyre as emotionless as rocks, returning to these magazines during subsequent visits to the studio, he decided to write a war novel. He later stated that he had been working the detail of the story out through most of his boyhood and had imagined war stories ever since he was out of knickerbockers. At the time, Crane was intermittently employed as a free-lance writer and he began writing what would become The Red Badge of Courage in June 1893, while living with his older brother Edmund in Lake View, New Jersey

12.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan